


Built in Fleeting Moments

by JustAPassingGlance



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 06:56:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11777832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAPassingGlance/pseuds/JustAPassingGlance
Summary: From a young age, Blaine’s father had warned him about talking to strangers. The warning had probably been rooted in a fear that he would be kidnapped and not that some person he met at party would actually turn around and sell his drunken confessions to a gossip magazine but it was sound advice in either circumstance.





	Built in Fleeting Moments

From a young age, Blaine’s father had warned him about talking to strangers. The warning had probably been rooted in a fear that he would be kidnapped and not that some person he met at party would actually turn around and sell his drunken confessions to a gossip magazine but it was sound advice in either circumstance.

He had gotten too relaxed while he was in college. People, by and large, had left him alone then. Even if they hadn’t always been the best at allowing him total anonymity, they had at least afforded him more privacy than he ever could have hoped for.

And after that, he had spent two years doing progressively-less off-Broadway theatre, where his name was enough to draw a buzz for the first few weeks of the show’s run before trickling off to little more than the occasional fan showing up at the stage door with a 10+ year old picture of him.

It had, on the whole, been a happily cloistered 6 years that had made him forget how duplicitous people could sometimes be.

 **BLAINE ANDERSON SPILLS ALL!!** the cover of a gossip magazine yelled up at him. It was, he thought, a rather generous title. He certainly hadn’t “spilled all”, just one or two things.

Heat’s take tracked more closely to the truth with **CHILD STAR’S LOVE CONFESSION** , although it pretty quickly deviated with its two-paragraph opening describing in salacious detail the years and years he spent pining after Sebastian Smythe, current Hollywood heartthrob and his previous costar and on-screen love interest.

For the record, if there was anyone in the world who still cared about such things, he had not pined. Ever. Much less for years. Which wasn’t the denial talking, no matter what his older brother, Cooper, said. It was the truth.

His publicist was thrilled, to the point where she was even talking about pushing up the release date of his debut album to "ride the wave of interest", as she put it. She was fielding dozens of calls a day looking for an interview or statement, and all with no actual work on their part. 

On the whole, the incident wasn't actually that big of a deal. Blaine recognized that, he really did. But it didn't stop him from feeling crippling humiliation every time he thought about it. 

Even if he had wanted to (and studiously ignored social media) he couldn't avoid dwelling on it because people kept sending him pictures (or even worse, actually copies of) every article that cropped up.

As a cherry on top of the sundae, Sebastian had released his own statement in response, which Blaine had masochistically memorized:

“It was a pleasure to work with Blaine Anderson. He has and always will be a very good friend of mine.”

The words were clearly not Sebastian’s own and anyone who had ever spent more than a few minutes with him would recognize that.

So, while Blaine suffered over his verbal indiscretion, Sebastian just had his publicist issue a generic statement and moved on with his life.

He had also left Blaine 10 voicemails, sent 2 e-mails, and texted him at a rate averaging once every 3 hours. But that particular level of concern and attention didn’t fit into Blaine’s spiraling crisis, so he studiously ignored those facts just as he was doing all of Sebastian’s attempts at communication.

If Blaine were entirely honest with himself, his state of emotional wreckage actually had more to do with anxiety over his upcoming album than it did with a headlines of rag mags and gossip columnists. But being entirely honest with himself also meant that he would have to admit that maybe he didn’t like all of his songs as much as he thought he should and that every day he was having second thoughts about something new.

All in all, it was much easier to project all his insecurity onto a stupid and embarrassing mistake.

* * *

Blaine had met Sebastian when he was eight-almost-nine in the final round of auditions for Hart’s County, a cable show about a ‘small town struggling through grief and understanding in the aftermath of an accident that left four of their teenagers dead.’

They had become friends quickly and Blaine had been thrilled to learn that they had been cast together.

The show had proved to be wildly successful and lasted for 9 seasons and, while their characters had originally just been written as best friends, just before the start of the 5th season, they had been called in for a long talk about the possibility of their characters becoming more. It had been awkward and a hard decision, as they themselves were just discovering their own sexualities (Sebastian more openly and enthusiastically then Blaine) and, ultimately, they decided that it was an important story to tell and that they shouldn’t let any insecurities or confusion in their own lives keep them from portraying it.

They had dated on-screen for three and a half seasons, enjoying a mostly stable relationship, although it wasn’t without its moments.

Whether it was the amount of time they spent together on set, the shared struggles of navigating fame at a young age, or that they were both coming out at the same time, they had always been exceptionally close, even compared to the rest of their tight-knit cast.

They had remained close even after the show had ended, as Blaine went off to college and Sebastian chose to continue pursuing his Hollywood career.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, Blaine had been a little bit in love with Sebastian. With the way he smiled reassuringly when Blaine had messed up his line again at the end of a long day of shooting. How, as they got older, he developed a habit of crinkling his brow when hadn’t had his morning cup of coffee. The way he hummed to himself between takes, a medley of the hits of the week. Or some of the bigger ways, like when he skipped out on his own Friday night plans to spend time with him or brought Blaine to his lacrosse games and the after parties when they won.

It was just then, in those small moments and fleeting ways.

* * *

At just after 3:30 in the morning, Blaine’s doorbell started ringing.

And ringing.

And ringing.

“I’m coming!” He yelled. He spent a minute groping around his bedside table for his glasses and doing his best to smooth down his hair. “Hold your— I said I was coming!”

He hurried from his bedroom into the living room, almost tripping over a chair in his haste to get to the door.

“Do you have any idea,” he huffed as he undid the lock and cracked the door open to glare at whoever decided to disturb him in the middle of the night, “exactly what ti—”

“So, you aren’t dead after all.” Sebastian stood on the other side of the door with his finger raised to jab at the doorbell again. “Johnnie will be relieved.”

“Sebastian,” Blaine said stupidly.

“Blaine.”

“You’re… aren’t you supposed to be in Germany?”

“Croatia.”

“This is LA.”

“I had the weekend off.”

“The weekend off? Sebastian… that must’ve been a—”

“I’ve spent the last 19 hours in airports or on airplanes,” Sebastian said in the exasperated tone that Blaine was all too familiar with from years on set that meant he had gotten too little sleep and his patience was running thin. “You’ve spent the last five days completely ignoring me and everyone else we know. I really think," he dragged out the words pointedly, "the least you could do at this juncture is to let me in.”

“Yes! Of course, please come in.” Blaine hastily stepped aside and before he had even fully processed what was happening, Sebastian was staggering towards his couch, carrying nothing more than a backpack with him.

“How long?” Blaine asked, causing Sebastian to stop in his tracks and turn back towards him. “Until you have to leave?”

“My flight’s at 4-something.”

“Okay then.” Blaine caught Sebastian’s elbow and forcibly steered him away from the couch and down the hall. “You get my bed tonight.”

“You’re not escaping me this easily, Blaine Anderson,” Sebastian threatened.

“Look,” Blaine said, guiding him to the bed and pushing him down onto it, “I have an early meeting. I should be back by 10.” He gave Sebastian a firm look to ensure he stayed sitting down before going to his dresser and rummaging through the drawers to find the baggiest shirt and pants he could find. Playfully, he threw them at Sebastian, the pants hitting Sebastian in the chest and his shirt landing squarely on his face. “You’re exhausted. You’re going to sleep now and I’ll wake you up when I get back.”

Sebastian picked up the shirt from his lap and stared unfocusedly at it while Blaine tutted quietly to himself.

“Here.” Blaine walked back over to the bed and pulled Sebastian’s jacket off him. “You really are useless after a flight, aren’t you? I forget how bad it was.”

“I took an Ambien to help me sleep,” Sebastian confessed. “I don’t think it’s completely worn off.” He shook his head twice. “I think I got it from here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m a big boy. I can undress myself.”

Blaine waited for the innuendo that would normally follow any conversation about undressing but Sebastian was apparently too tired for even that.

Deftly Sebastian unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it before pulling Blaine’s on. It was one of the many shirt’s that Blaine had collected in college and it fit snuggly across Sebastian’s chest.

“Okay,” Blaine said, backtracking towards the door. “I’ll be on the couch. Help yourself to anything you need if you wake up before I get back. And we’ll talk in the morning, okay?”

Sebastian flopped back onto the bed and began shimmying out of his pants, which Blaine took as his cue to leave.

“You’re okay though?” Sebastian’s asked, pausing with his pants halfway down his thighs. “You’re doing okay?”

Blaine stopped half-way out the door. “I’m okay, Sebastian. I promise and I apologize if I worried anyone.”

“Ok,” he said, like he didn’t really believe him.

“Good night, Sebastian.”

“Good night, Blaine.”

* * *

When Blaine returned the next morning, it was to find Sebastian on his couch with one cup of coffee in his hand and another sitting on the table in front of him. He still looked tired but was freshly showered and back in his own clothes.

"So," he said in lieu of greeting. He raised his mug to his lips and took a long sip, fixing Blaine with a pointed stare over, before saying "you were in love with me and now you’re embarrassed that the world knows?" 

Blaine ignored the cup of coffee, having already had 3 that morning. Feeling anxious, he sat down heavily in his chair. Of all the conversations he had been avoiding having, talking to Sebastian had been the one he felt most nerve-wracked about.

"That's not what I... the woman who wrote that twisted my words.”

Taking a deep breath, he tried his best to explain what it was he had said, or had been trying to say. How they had grown up together in an environment that few other people in the world could understand. How, they had gone through a lot of intense things, both on- and off-screen that made them closer with each other than they were with even the rest of the cast.

It wasn’t mixing up real life with fictional, exactly. But the emotions could have gotten muddled. And maybe, in some ways, he had fallen a little in love with Sebastian somewhere along the way. But at the end of the day, they were Blaine and Sebastian, not their characters.

Sebastian nodded his head. "I see. It sounds like she really did take that out of context.”

Blaine sighed in relief, glad that Sebastian understood. “I feel so stupid.”

"It's not a big deal." Sebastian smiled reassuringly at him. “People have said far worse about both of us.”

“No, I know that. Of course I overacted to everything. I’ve just been stressed recently. And I didn’t want people to think… I don’t know what I didn’t want them to think, actually.” He laughed. “But I didn’t want them thinking it. And I didn’t want you to be dragged into this. And I hate that people might start thinking that anything between us was more than what it was. Because I value our friendship. I value it so, so much, Sebastian. And I know that you liked to have a good time but you were never anything other than professional on set.”

“Except for all the crew that I slept with.”

“Which you did tastefully.”

“Tastefully?”

“Well, quietly.”

“There was definitely nothing quiet about it.”

“Fine. Discretely then.”

Sebastian snorted but nodded his head in concession.

Before sharing his side of the story, he hadn’t realized how much of his embarrassment was caused by the idea of what Sebastian thought of him. But as he explained himself, he felt the knot that had taken up residence in his stomach ease, not to the point of completely disappearing but enough that he no longer felt like it was going to devour him.

It was like being 13 again, when Sebastian, who was actually 7 months younger than him, was the standard by which he judged his own coolness. It hadn’t mattered so much what the rest of the world had thought of him, as long as Sebastian didn’t think he was a complete idiot.

Sebastian leaned forward to put his coffee mug down. "I was in love with you." 

"You were?" Blaine blinked.

In all the years that they had known each other, Blaine had never heard Sebastian talk about love. There had been parts of men’s bodies that he had loved and he had confessed to meeting the man of his dreams no less than twenty-times, always said with a certain smirk that left no room for confusion as to exactly what kind of dreams those men were taken from. But never had he spoken of love so sincerely or so casually.

"Maybe it's like what you were saying," Sebastian shrugged, "and my feelings got mixed up with our characters'. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe I just loved you." 

"Oh." Blaine's face heated up. His mind scrambled back through nearly 2 decades worth of interaction, trying to discern any signs that he had missed. "I didn't... I didn't ever realize."

"I don't know that I realized. Not then, at least. You remember what I was like then." Sebastian shrugged again, easy and languid like everything else he did and he laughed; the perfect image of carefully practiced self-deprivation. "But I knew how much I wanted you. And that I liked spending time with you. It just took me a while to figure out what that meant."

"And now?" 

"It's been a long time since then."

“That isn’t why you…” Blaine said, gestured to himself and around the apartment.

“What? Why I’m here?” Sebastian laughed again but harsher this time and his shoulders hunched defensively. “I wasn’t running here to sweep you off your feet, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“No! No, of course not! But…” Blaine smiled uncertainly as he hedged his bets as to whether he could lighten the mood with a joke. “Well, I mean, it would probably have worked. Booking a last minute flight across ten time zones for a 12 hour visit would be a pretty big romantic gesture.”

Sebastian folded his arms over his chest but the left side of his mouth was twitching in amusement. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

“Be sure that you do.”

He had meant for it to come out as teasing but it sounded more like a dare, although he couldn’t say what it was, exactly, that he was daring Sebastian to do. But he could almost feel the _snick_ of a door opening with his words and by the considering way Sebastian was looking at him, Blaine thought he must have felt it too.

And then the moment had passed and he found himself balking in the face of the future.

“So,” he stood up abruptly and made a grab for Sebastian’s empty mug, “did you have breakfast while I was out? I can make you something, if you like. Or we can go out somewhere? That place you like, the one with the pancakes isn’t too far from here. We could go there. Or somewhere else? If there’s something you’ve been craving. I know how badly I miss certain places when I’ve been gone for too long.”

“Whatever you have is fine.”   

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

Blaine clung to the mug in his hand, suddenly feeling dizzy and light-headed. Probably from the sheer amounts of caffeine he had consumed. Maybe from the way Sebastian was looking at him. Or the realization that that had been the way that Sebastian had always looked at him.

“Okay. I can get you some more coffee,” he said as he took a step towards the kitchen, “and whip up some eggs over easy.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“I’ll be right back,” he promised. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

 


End file.
